November 2016

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Tues 1st NovemberVideo Evening - About lighting Part 1

No Report

Tues 8th NovemberPrint Competition Rd2 - David Wood ARPS, DPAPG

Definitely into autumn now with our second print heat competition on 8th November, David Wood ARPS, DPAPG of Beckenham PS was judge. The entry was up on Heat 1 with 19 mono and 39 colour prints to be judged. Sixty prints in an evening is about the limit that is normally applied to allow the judge reasonable time to consider, comment and mark each one, so this was knocking on that limit which is a pleasing development.

The evening started with the Colour prints and David marked as he went through the order, holding back six for final placing, and his decision was:

The Colour Print scores were:

Position

Title

Author

1st

The Temple Church

Martin Ridout LRPS

2nd

Still Life with Terracotta Jug

Inna Karpova

3rd

Brighton Sunset

Jon Cowdock

4th

Ashley

John Hill LRPS

H. Mention

Salisbury Sunrise

Jon Cowdock

After the break it was the Mono competition which proceeded in the same manner, this time David held back just four prints which just left the order of them to be decided. And that turned out to be:

The Mono Print scores were:

Position

Title

Author

1st

High-key Koniks

Jon Cowdock

2nd

Movement in Patterns

Jan Gilkes LRPS

3rd

Under the Eye

Martin Ridout LRPS

4th

Storm Approaching Oare Marshes

Jon Cowdock

No Hon Mentions were awarded

We just about got through the lists in the allotted time and thanks to David for keeping to time and for his thoughtful remarks. And Well Done! To Jon Cowdock , a new member to the club, for making such a good showing with thoroughly deserving images.

Thank you to Andrew for his report

Wed 9th NovemberFSLPS – DPI Competition Rd1 - At Beckenham PS

Six clubs including WWPS met at Beckenham’s meeting hall for their first round match in this season’s SLF inter-club series of competitions which was judged by Mike Dales ARPS. Mike started by explaining that his job tonight was more difficult than at a normal single-club competition as these images would be the best selected by each club, so there should be no lower echelons in the quality stakes upon which to build his comments.

Eight images from each club gave a total of forty-eight for the evening; not a high number for an evening’s judging, so Mike was able to spend a reasonable time on each. His comments were generally about what he liked in each image, with only occasional criticism, and some amusing anecdotes. One facet that he did major on for a few of the images was whether the photographer had simply photographed someone else’s work, a building or an artwork, or whether there was any real artistic input from the photographer.

Thirteen images were held back. Scoring for the non-held images ranged from 6.5 up to 9, with only four images from those held back scoring the maximum of 10 and two more scoring 9.5. In this inter-club series the number of certificates to be awarded in a match is the same as the number of clubs participating; six certificates in this case. Often judges will award the maximum score to that number of images, but Mike decided to separate two of the certificated images by half a point to 9.5.

Panel for scores: FSLSP DPI Competition Rd1

Title

Author

Pts

Stairway View

Jan Gilkes LRPS

9 - (Held)

Curvilinear

Martin Ridout LRPS

7

Do Not Feed The Birds

Bob Zwolinsky

6.5

Still Life with Persimmons

Inna Karpova

10 - (Held) - Certificate

Under African Skies

Mike Spurway

9

White Anemone Heart

Inna Karpova

10 - (Held) - Certificate

Flotsam

Mike Spurway

8.5

Look into my Eyes

Martin Ridout LRPS

9

Total – 69pts

Congratulations to Inna for her two certificates. For the remaining four certificates, Beckenham won three, and Aperture Woolwich won one.

The overall club scores were:

Position

Club

Total Pts

1st

Beckenham PS

70.5

2nd

West Wickham PS

69

3rd

Aperture Woolwich PS

67

4th

Selsdon CC

65.5

5th

Bromley CC

65

6th

Greenwood CC

59.5

Beckenham were the clear winners; congratulations to them. And having come second we go forward to a semi-final and meet the winner of the other first-round match, Orpington, on 20th January next year at Selsdon.

Thank you to Martin for his report

Tues 15th NovemberFlash Workshop - A practical talk on the use of flash by Mike Spurway

The workshop was a continuation of the years chosen subject ‘Light and how best to use it’. The evening was organised as half talk and half practical. The emphasis of the half hour talk was to get members more familiar with the flash on their cameras, highlighting technical points and giving guidance on areas often overlooked or misunderstood. For the practical part, Mike was helped by Martin and Bob, who assisted with individual manufacturers products and guided the members on their usage.

After the break, Mike gave a second short talk on flash accessories and variations on how to use them, which was followed by the members trying them out on their own cameras.

A good evening, where members hopefully gained some extra wisdom in the use of flash.

With Bob away, at the helm for the evening was Andrew. After updating the members on what had been happening in the prior week, the evening commenced with a quick run through of all 54 images submitted. Then it was down to the serious business of viewing, discussing and scoring on the supplied sheets each of the entries submitted. This year the comments were more subdued than previous years, but every image got a good viewing. With all the entries shown it had been decided that only those images that enough members had given a top score of 4 or 5 would shown for a third time. With so many different ideas on what people thought was good there were 6 images left for the final viewing.

Another competition and another visit to Croydon club – this time for the first round of the FSLPS Mono Print competition and we were up against Beckenham, Croydon, Mitcham, Old Coulsdon and Selsdon, so there were 48 images all told.

Andy Smith was the judge and he used his usual technique of commenting on all the prints and then scoring them on a second showing, holding back some prints for final scoring. In this case he did not have time to preview the prints and so his first sight of them was on the display easel – more on that below. His style is brisk, very positive and concise with his views of any improvement at the end.

After scoring all but the hold-backs, we were well placed with four of our panel held back along with five others, and Old Coulsdon were in a strong position too having a slightly higher average score than us, so the hold-back scoring was pretty tense! But all our four got 10 so we got our nose in front and did win with 73.5 over Old Coulsdon with 72.5. After that it was Beckenham 71, Selsdon 67.5, Croydon 67 and Mitcham 62.5. And then all our 10s got Certificates! Half of a club’s panel being certificated was commented on as unprecedented.

It means we are now through to the semi-finals in all three competitions. In Colour Prints we are against Old Coulsdon, in the PDI competition we are against Orpington and in the Mono Prints we are against Bromley. These are ALL on Friday 20th January at Selsdon with Paul Adams as judge. So make a note in your diaries NOW!

The evening was the third workshop in the ‘Light and How Best to Use It’ program organised for this year. This time there were two different lighting set-ups for members to experiment with. Norman brought along some mains powered constant lamps, and Martin brought a small home studio flash arrangement, utilising speedlights in light modifiers. Members were again asked to bring their cameras and tripods so that they could try the equipment with compositions that Norman and Martin had set up. A third set up was organised with an Oboe and a Cor Anglais which Val had kindly brought along for members to photograph with their own equipment. After a short discussion, everybody had the chance to photograph each of the three still-life set-ups, covering the different aspects which had been discussed.

Again a good evening, as members were able to follow up what they had learnt previously and take it a step further.

Thank you to Martin for the report and Norman and Martin for a great evening along with the members that brought items for the compositions.